15 Hawaiian Paradise Park studios with 35 artists will open their studios to the public.

…”Our mission is also to encourage art education through donations to local schools for art supplies and by providing opportunities for mentoring, lectures and workshops.” The 2008 tour donation was over $1000.00 to the Hawaii Academy of Arts and Sciences in Pahoa, and the first year was $600 to the Keaau High School art department.

A portion of all sales will be donated to the Pahoa High School art department.

On another note, I urge you all to read Alan McNaries blog “ where he states among other things:

“…It happens every year. The Artists’ Hui has tried to limit the damage, (and neighbors’ complaints of noise and traffic snarls) by limiting the number of participating artists, by having more than one artist at a site, and by using sites on major streets instead of the one-lane trails by which many local residents reach their homes (hardly any of the official “open studios” are actually held in real artists’ studios any more), but a number of other artists continue to hold “unofficial” sales at their houses on the same weekend.

Some neighbors put up obstacles such as construction-scene tape to keep vehicles off the shoulders near their homes. But that reduced the amount of areas where cars could park, concentrating the damage and causing some drivers to pull off in really soggy areas they might otherwise have avoided…“

Alan McNarie featured Pahoa and the opposition that some residents here in Pahoa have to the new Burger King, KFC and Longs Drug’s going up at Woodland Center in an article entitled “Food Fight” that was released today by the Honolulu Weekly.

…Most of Downtown Pahoa fits into two blocks: Wooden buildings that look like a Wild West movie town, complete with false fronts and covered boardwalks. The town developed a Wild West reputation during the 1970s and ’80s, when it became a counterculture Mecca, a pakalolo growing hub and a welfare center…